Social Networking in The Classroom

Hey everyone! My name is Stephanie and I am a senior at a technical high school. I am in the Computer Programming and Web Development course. For a graduation requirement, i must do a 20 min presentation about something above and beyond what we have learned.

I am doing my presentation on how Social Networking can be used in the classroom. The 3 major points are YouTube, Podcasting and Blogging. Like what I am doing now...

Since a lot of people here are educators...or experienced in this technology...I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how I can show blogging.

Anyone apart of a school blog that discusses any school subject?

Any help would be appreciated. I would also like if anyone had any ideas on how i can present this.

Maybe i could use blog as an example?

Let me know what you think!!

Thanks!!

<3Stephee

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on February 15, 2008 at 12:08pm

So, I'll let classroom bloggers make contact with you, but you might also look at my wiki, www.supportblogging.com, for some ideas and people to follow up with. There's also an email discussion list you could post to there.

I wonder if you might not also want to consider looking at actual "social networking," like this Ning site, in the classroom. There is a network I run for Nin at http://education.ning com that has educators whom you might enjoy talking with.

Good luck! Sounds like you are doing some amazing things. Are you familiar with http://students2oh.org?

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Pass on February 15, 2008 at 12:25pm

Very interesting question!!

Here's one thought, in order to develop this project you are obviously using a social network. What benefits came from using this social network? What possible negative consequences came from using this network that you had to pay attention to? You might consider using yourself as a case study and developing a video highlighting what you did/what you thought as you went about developing your work product.

Just a thought.

Andy

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Permalink Reply by Joanne on February 16, 2008 at 5:02pm

Stephanie,
We have a third grade school teacher who uses blogging to get the kids to create new chapters of a story. For instance the teacher starts out the blog with something like this:

Once upon a time there was a person named Santa Claus. He lived in the city of Milk and Cookies and his job was to deliver toys.

Then each student has to blog a continuation of the story, it's actually similar to a wiki but they do it in blog form. The teacher could also make students use a vocabulary word in their blogging if they'd like. Well hope this helped, good luck with your project! - Joanne

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Permalink Reply by Vincent Mespoulet on February 17, 2008 at 2:21am

Yes it's great but why don't you add an other point: "Ninging" ? ;-). I think that a multiblog interface is a key-point in this kind of presentation. In School Beyond the walls, my students are working with others students on common international projects...

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Permalink Reply by Gerald Ardito on February 17, 2008 at 5:28am

Stephanie,
I hope you are enjoying your project and learning a lot from it. I have been blogging with my 7th and 8th grade science students for the past two years and it has been an essential part of the courses. You can check them out here:
http://arditoscience.blogspot.com/

I have also been working on a wiki to potentially manage class projects and other activities. Here it is:
http://pvcscience.wetpaint.com/

I have also used GoogleDocs as a way for students to collaborate with each other and with me on projects, which has been effective.

One "angle" you could mention in your presentation is that these (and other Web 2.0 tools) give students a chance to author various types of content. I think this is extremely important.

Good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Barry Bakin on February 19, 2008 at 12:20pm

EEK! DANGER! ALERT! A student! Asking questions of teachers! How startling! How revolutionary! Who let you know we were here? Did your teacher betray us? You must divulge your source so we can put an end to such intrusions! Now that you've found us, you've got to promise not to let any of your peers know that you've breached the teacher/student barrier by using social networking tools or we'll take away your Myspace page! And you certainly should never be told that administrators blog too! Can you imagine what would happen if an administrator found a response to his or her blog post from a student? You'd have to make sure the paramedics were on standby!

Oh, and don't bother talking about YouTube in the classroom, it's mostly blocked (at least for teachers) and if you try to demonstrate it and it's blocked at your school, your presentation will be a disaster. You might take a look at TeacherTube instead. Have you heard of wikis? Lots of teachers have students cooperate in building web pages. Because wikis are Internet-based, they can collaborate even if they don't go to the same school. Here's a wiki page my students are building together with students from Vermont. http://coasttocoast.pbwiki.com/ (But don't tell anyone where you found out!)

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Sousa on February 24, 2008 at 10:18am

Okay everyone!! Thank you so much for all of the great ideas! I have a little less then two weeks to prepare for this and I must get a passing grade in order to graduate.

Wish me luck! My presentation is on March 7th. I will post a comment to let you all know how I did! Thanks again!

<3Stephee

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Permalink Reply by Art Wolinsky on February 24, 2008 at 11:58am

Hi Stephanie,

I have a few lessons for educators our WiredSafety.org web site. If you go to http://www.wiredsafety.org/wiredlearning/toc.html and select the presentation titled Blogs in Education, you might get a few ideas.

As far as how you might want to present it, I guess that depends on the nature of your research and presentation. If you are thinking along the lines of PowerPoint, I would suggest taking the Web 2.0 approach. Are you familiar with Google Docs? http://docs.google.com Most people who are familiar with it know that it is a way for people to collaborate on a word processing document, but it also allows you to create collaborative presentations and spreadsheets. So you can develop it there and it will have its own URL. Another site that does the same thing is Preezo.com, but my favorite is sliderocket.com. However, sliderocket.com is still in early beta and while you can visit and view presentations made there, you need an invitation to join. You can request an invitation to join, but I wouldn't risk putting important work up there until it is out of beta.

Now let's stay right out there on the bleeding edge. I'm giving a workshop this week on Web 2.0 in the classroom and I used a site called Animoto.com to create a video trailer that I sent to the school ahead of time. You might want to do the same sort of thing as an introduction to your presentation. Check out the Web 2.0 trailer on my personal blog at http://www.3dwriting.com/tlrr/2008/02/web-20-in-education.html

Good luck in your research!
Art

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Permalink Reply by Michael Staton on February 25, 2008 at 10:17pm

Stephee,

Your post says the topic is social networking. But blogging and youtube and podcasting are not social networking, if it's social networking you want go here http://www.edumorphology.com/?p=10.

I found blogging worked best as a sort of newsletter about the classroom. Students like to see when the teacher recognizes them in a non-lame manner, and I thought it worked quite well.

- Michael